Multitudes Queer. Notes for a Politics of “Abnormality”

Abstract

This article deals with the emergence of queer movements and theories, with theirrelations to feminisms, and with the political use they make of Foucault and Deleuze. It alsoexplores the theoretical and political advantages of the notion of “multitude” in relation to that of“sexual difference” for queer theory and movements. Differently from what happens in the United States, queer movements in Europe follow the anarchist and the emerging transgender cultures tofight the “Sexual Empire”, proposing a deontology of identity politics. There is no longer a naturalbasis (“woman”, “gay”, etc) to legitimate political action. What matters is not “sexual difference”or “the difference of homosexuals”, but the queer multitudes. A multitude of bodies: transgenderbodies, men without penises, gounis garous, cyborgs, butch women, lesbian gays... “Sexualmultitude” appears, then, as the possible subject of queer politics.